It has been a crazy, surprising run!

[lalatan]

Originally Posted by Spike1007

It would probably be a better use of my time to skip those boards, but I take it as a challenge to find the existing words (and, of course, if they're worth enough, I'll keep them).

I'd say any aspect of this game that gives you a challenge is a worthy pursuit. It must be gratifying when you set a new record on those boards.

[Spike1007]

I do like improving on 26+ point words. Like we said, that's rare, but it can happen. Another thing I try to do (rarely with success) is to improve the status (to ultra-rare) of existing long words. I always think that if I see an existing 17+ letter word that's worth way less than it could be, I should be able to find it & build on it. I don't remember that happening, but I still dream...

[lalatan]

Yahooooo!! I just reached 10k 5x5 best/longest word records.
Been a long time coming; took a year, 2 months, 12 days to get there from 0.

[lalatan]

I had quite the late-night session today; set 20 records in 1 hr, 20 mins. 14 of them were 26+ pt words. Personal best for my late-night sessions.
Words I never found before:
TRANSGRESSIVELY
PROSAICALNESSES
LADYLIKENESSES
DESILVERIZATION
CHROMATICITIES twice within 12 mins of each other. The board layouts were also different for each 1. That never happened before that quickly.

Update on the scoring issue I mentioned before in this thread:
After entering my daily stats for 2.5 months I've found there is a small increase in long word records the elves give over time: 42 more longest word records than best word records over 70 days. I get a few longest word records only now and then so the total is probably around 35 extra. That averages only 1 extra record every 2 days so it's pretty insignificant. During that time I've set 2,404 best/longest word records so the extra 35 is 1.5% of that total.

And I never got a reply from admin when I sent an e-mail about the issue 2 months ago. I guess they are busy blotting any spam that shows up. Seems they're diligent about that anyway, which is nice.

[erakis17]

Those are some awesome words lalatan. Congrats on all your progress as well!

[Spike1007]

lalatan, those are some good words! As far as elf points go, my "best words" stats still seem about right. My "longest words" stat still seems to vary from day to day, but nowhere near by as much as yours. You set a lot more records than I do, so I think it's related to a percentage or something. Mine goes up or down by 5 or so a night. (I've still thought about waiting up to see when the elves come, but I haven't managed that yet.)

[lalatan]

Thanks erakis and Spike.

Spike: For a while it seemed like the more records I set in a day the greater the overnight increase in longest word records. But then there was a day when I hardly played at all and wound up with 8 records for the day. Next morning longest words had jumped up 29 more. That still happens occasionally but a larger jump is more likely when I set a lot of records the previous day. Without exception large increases are mostly gone by the end of the same day. Pretty crazy. I can't fathom why it's happening.

After you first posted that it was happening, about 2 weeks later I started checking my totals whenever I woke up during the night. The elves seem to do their thing between 3-4 a.m. PDT. I suspect it's an instantaneous jump so I'd advise you to go to sleep at your usual time.

[lalatan]

Hey Spike: I just played a board where the previous best/longest word records were 8/6. I decided to try it since it had 1 9+ ultrarare word and I wanted to see if I could find it. Within the first 10 seconds I saw HYDROCHLOROFLUOROCARBON and played it for 42/23. But that's not the largest improvement I've made on a board. Once a newbie had played a new game and the records were 4/5. (I marveled how pathetic that was but, hey, we all have to start somewhere.) I found a 42/23 word there as well.

I've been curious for some time what your largest improvement was. Do you recall or keep track of that?

[bwt1213]

Originally Posted by lalatan

Hey Spike: I just played a board where the previous best/longest word records were 8/6. I decided to try it since it had 1 9+ ultrarare word and I wanted to see if I could find it. Within the first 10 seconds I saw HYDROCHLOROFLUOROCARBON and played it for 42/23. But that's not the largest improvement I've made on a board. Once a newbie had played a new game and the records were 4/5. (I marveled how pathetic that was but, hey, we all have to start somewhere.) I found a 42/23 word there as well.

I've been curious for some time what your largest improvement was. Do you recall or keep track of that?

Take it the other way. I just played a board where Estivate had the high score of (I think) 1043. I got 576. I had previously today passed the previous high score on different boards by 200, 300, and 400 points (681 to 275 for that one), only to be whomped by almost 500 myself. Congrats to Estivate! And no, I don't have a problem with being outscored by that much. It is, after all, only a game.

[Spike1007]

Originally Posted by lalatan

Hey Spike: I just played a board where the previous best/longest word records were 8/6. I decided to try it since it had 1 9+ ultrarare word and I wanted to see if I could find it. Within the first 10 seconds I saw HYDROCHLOROFLUOROCARBON and played it for 42/23. But that's not the largest improvement I've made on a board. Once a newbie had played a new game and the records were 4/5. (I marveled how pathetic that was but, hey, we all have to start somewhere.) I found a 42/23 word there as well.

I've been curious for some time what your largest improvement was. Do you recall or keep track of that?

I don't really keep track of (or remember) that. I know that this month I've gotten a 44 point word (UNDERREPRESENTATIVENESSES) on a board that hadn't been played before, but that doesn't really count without someone else having a go at it first. (Looking at that again, that can't be right. That would be a 25 letter word. Possibly it was without the final -ES.) I do remember more than tripling a highest word-point score lately (probably into the upper 30s), and I was happy to do that. In absolute point improvement, I'll have to watch for that. Anyway, good work!

By the way, I've been skipping most boards with only one ultra-rare 9+ word, and I've been wondering about the wisdom of that. Thanks for setting me straight.

Edit: My 44 point word was UNREPRESENTATIVENESSES. I should get my eyes checked.